Posts tagged ‘reference works’

Since 2014, Leiden University Libraries are hosting a ‘Taiwan Resource Center for Chinese Studies‘. This resource center, established by an official agreement between the National Central Library in Taiwan (NCL) and the Leiden University Libraries (UBL) signed in 2014, will be the platform for Taiwan to promote and share both Taiwan and China studies with the faculty, scholars and students of Leiden University. The agreement, aimed to strenghten academic ties, resulted in a generous donation of books on all kinds of subjects relating to Chinese studies, and provides access to a wealth of digital Chinese resources.

The TRCCS book collection (here’s the list) which is continuously updated, can be found on dedicated bookshelves inside the East Asian Library Reading Room. All books are available for browsing and borrowing. Apart from printed works, staff and students of Leiden University have access to many electronic databases, hosted by the National Central Library in Taipei.

Here are two important ones:

The ‘Three History’ Set Lidai san tao 歷代三套:
Large database of historical works, divided into three sections: 1. Lidai huiyao 歷代會要 [total: 336 juan] Institutional Histories throughout the Ages; 2. Lidai Shihua 歷代詩話 [242 juan] Poetry and Verse throughout the Ages; and 3. Lidai fuhui 歷代賦彙 [total: 191 juan] Collected Poetic Prose throughout the Ages. Access from within the University campus.

Linking Publishing ebooks collection 聯經電子書Lianjing dianzi shu:
A collection of 270 ebooks on various topics including history, literature, economy, and arts and lifestyle. Although downloading these PDFs is not possible, all ebooks can be read from the screen. Access from within the University campus.

For a full list of available databases go to the TRCCS website and browse the ‘Resources’ section. There are a lot of interesting databases, of which below a small selection :

Digital Images 古籍影像檢索. Tick the box saying 是否有影像 on the search screen, then click”瀏覽影像” top left to view scanned books from the NCL, the Library of Congress, the C.V. Starr East Asian Library, and others.

National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations 臺灣博碩士論文知識加值系統 (> 16,000 documents) This database provides access to indexes and abstracts in both Chinese and English of doctoral and master’s theses approved by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan since 1956.

We have access to Chinese Studies – Oxford Bibliographies, with Tim Wright (Emeritus Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Sheffield) as editor in chief, and a board of editors and expert contributors who have written on the subject. The list of research fields is updated regularly.

The Bibliography in Chinese Studies provides an authoritative guide to the whole field’s key works and the most important scholarship in European languages as well as Chinese and Japanese. (more…)

Our library has arranged for a trial access to the Oxford Bibliographiess, a carefully selected set of authoritative research guides in a wide area of subject areas, including social sciences, humanities, area studies, history, religion and law. It is a great resource to start your search for good validated sources in a particular field.

Each subject area has a board of editors and expert contributors who have written on the subject. The list of research fields is updated regularly and forthcoming research fields are found at the bottom of the subject area’s main page.

For each research field, referred to as ‘articles’, there is a one page introduction with a list of titles providing General Overviews or General Studies of the subject chosen, plus a selection of Reference works and other Guides to Sources or Primary Data Sources. Depending on the field, there are extensive lists of collections, periodicals, compendia, translated works or other relevant sources. Have a look at the entries for ‘China Studies‘ or ‘Buddhism‘ for example, with subjects like Chinese Cinema or China’s One Child Policy, for example.

All recommended articles or books on every subject have a short four-line review and a nice option to save or download its citation to, for example, Endnote or Zotero. A second handy feature makes you ‘Find this resource’ at our own library, or through WorldCat or Google Books. Our link resolver SFX will take you automatically to the fulltext or to the printed copy, if we have it at our library.

To learn more, you are welcome to watch the guided tour for students or for faculty through ‘Take a Tour‘. Our trial to ‘Oxford Bibliographies’ will run until February 14.